Rugby Championship 2025 R1 Recap/ R2 Preview

therookiereporters
Aug 23
2 min read

The rugby championship takes place every year around the time of August-October between the 4 southern hemisphere rugby nations of Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa who battle it out for the bragging rights. New Zealand, historically, has been the most successful team in this tournament since its induction in 2012 and under its previous guise as the ‘Tri nations Series’ between the 3 biggest nations until Argentina joined. With a whopping 20 titles in 28 attempts, New Zealand have a potent strike rate but can they make it Number 21 this time round?

Round 1 Fixture Round Up

South Africa 🇿🇦 - 22 vs Australia 🇦🇺 - 38

This game was ultimately a game of 2 parts. In the first 20 minutes, the Boks came out firing with 3 quickfire tries to open up an incredible 22pt lead which you think surely not surmountable right for the Aussies. Well against all odds they proved their progression as a team with an absolute spirited performance in the last 60 mins both mentally to chase down the lead and physically to absolutely dominate the key battles in set piece which stopped the Boks being able to play their natural game. The absolute free flowing rugby on display from the Aussies was great to watch as they capitalised on South Africa's mistakes and poor discipline throughout the last 60 minutes to put on an insane unanswered 38pts on the board. This was surely a sucker punch of a result for the Springboks on home turf and a wake up call for sure. You can expect a resolute response from the South Africans in a repeat fixture of the two teams this Saturday as they are looking to bounce back to winning ways.

Argentina 🇦🇷 - 24 vs New Zealand 🇳🇿 - 41

This game was also another interesting match which concluded a fascinating first week of rugby fixtures. Argentina always carry that entertainment factor in the way they play rugby and this was prevalent in their performance. The New Zealanders really brought class and professionalism to their performance especially in the first half with some great rugby. Ultimately, even though the Argies got within 8pts with 10 mins to go, they ran out of steam. New Zealand was able to outrun Argentina's fightback in the second half and added 2 additional tries in the last 10 minutes to ruthlessly prove their authority on the scoreboard to win by a comfortable 17pts in the end. With both teams taking important learnings into the second repeat fixture will be fascinating to see if we see a change in results on the pitch on Saturday.